My work has been published in over 35 scientific peer-reviewed publications in many top venues including ACM CHI, UbiComp, IJCAI, MobiSys, ASSETS, and ICSE
earning nine paper awards in total: four best paper awards (CHI'10, CHI'13, ASSETS'13, CHI'16 LBW) and five best paper honorable mentions (UbiComp'09, CHI'12, CHI'13,
2 x CHI'15). In addition, our UIST'14 paper on Tohme
was selected for the ACM Computing Reviews 'Best of Computing 2014' list. Please see my publication page and/or
Google Scholar page for more details.

Teaching Focus
My teaching largely mirrors my research interests: I teach a physical making class called Tangible Interactive Computing
(e.g.,Spring 2015)
as well as an intro class on HCI (e.g.,Fall 2014). My teaching statement is available here.
More about teaching here.

Research Focus
My research focuses on designing, building, and evaluating interactive technology that addresses high
value social issues such as environmental sustainability, computer accessibility, and personalized
health and wellness. This work often involves the entire spectrum of information flow: from sensing
physical events, to intelligently interpreting/classifying this data, to building visualizations that
inform and motivate behavior. Please see my list of publications here.

I have been increasingly interested in research that expands the materiality of computing such as
electronic textiles (e-textiles). Here's a recent talk I gave at the National Academy of Sciences as
part of their DC Art Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER) program.

My research interests can broadly be broken down into four social application areas: health, environmental
sustainability, smart cities, and accessibility. I have also been increasingly involved in research
that intersects with learning science and new learning technologies (e.g., BodyVis, MakerShoe).

Sensing and Feedback Systems for Environmental Behaviors
There is often a profound disconnect between our everyday behaviors and the effects those behaviors
have on our health and the environment around us. In this research, I explore how technology can be
used to effectively sense and report information about environmental behaviors to promote awareness
and enable positive behavior change. Research questions involved here include: What behaviors
should we sense and how? How, where, and when should this sensed activity data be presented? And, finally,
What impact can sensing and feedback have on behavior?

Smart Cities and Sustainable Transport
City-wide urban infrastructures are increasingly reliant on network technology to improve and expand
their services. As a consequence, our interactions in the physical world are increasingly leaving
behind digital footprints. In this research, I explore how these digital footprints can reveal otherwise
latent patterns of human behavior as well as implications for the improvement of city infrastructures
themselves (e.g., shared bicycling programs, rail and bus systems).

Health and Wellness
As sensors continue to decrease in size/price and advances in machine learning enable better and more
granular activity recognition, there is an enormous opportunity for new personal health applications
particularly around sleeping, diet, and exercise. In the long term, I hope to
continue building and studying applications that motivate positive behaviors for both health and the
environment. Significant questions remain: What are the most effective strategies for motivating behaviors?
Can systems adapt their strategies to fit the individual user? How can we use technology to sustain behaviors
over time? What is the role of augmented reality and other forms of emerging media?

For example, in the NSF-funded BodyVis project, we are exploring new approaches to sensing and visualizing anatomy and physiology
using on-body sensors and e-textile visualizations to help children learn about their bodies and the health implications of their behavior.

In another project called Social Fabric Fitness, we are exploring the use of custom-built e-textile displays to support running groups.

Computer and World Accessibility
As we increasingly rely on computers and mobile devices to support everyday tasks such as bill paying,
internet browsing, and social communication, both new opportunities and new challenges emerge for those with
physical and/or cognitive disabilities. My interest in computer accessibility goes beyond simply investigating
how computers can be universally usable (e.g., touchscreen accessibility) but also in how computers can be used to
make the world more accessible as well (e.g., studying sidewalk accessibility).

For example, with the GlassEar project, we designed, developed, and evaluated new head-mounted display
visualizations to help persons with hearing loss localize and identify sounds.

In another project, called HandSight (which is funded by the DOD), we are exploring the use of tiny, endoscopic finger-mounted cameras to provide
information about non-tactile surfaces to the visually impaired. The video below focuses on one application, in particular, real-time OCR
using the finger as a scanner. This project started in 2012 as part of a class project in my Tangible Interactive Computing graduate course
(here's a video of the prototype at that time).

Research Approach
Although my methods extend largely from Ubiquitous Computing and Human-Computer Interaction, my research is additionally
informed by perspectives in design, information visualization, economics, and behavioral and environmental
psychology. I also apply knowledge from data-intensive areas such as machine
learning and signal processing to help build and evaluate my sensing systems. My research process is
iterative, often beginning with lightweight formative studies and, crucially, concluding with field
deployments of working technology. In this way, I am interested not only in building new technologies
but in studying their actual effectiveness in the field. Finally, as my work is often interdisciplinary,
I frequently collaborate with researchers both within various sub-disciplines of computer science
(e.g., machine learning) as well as outside of computer science (e.g., electrical engineering and psychology).

Prospective Students
I am looking for undergraduate and graduate students passionate about investigating the role of technology in solving high-value social problems.
If this interests you, please contact me so that we can setup a time to chat about mutual interests and potential research projects. Also, read this.